Peter Hughes, British Ambassador to North Korea, got himself into a bit of hot water over some comments he made in a guest blog entry on March 13.
A sample:
The weather during the weekend was relatively warm and sunny for the elections of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly that took place on Sunday 8 March. There was a very festive atmosphere throughout the city. Many people were walking to or from the polling stations, or thronging the parks to have picnics or just stroll… Outside the central polling stations there were bands playing and people dancing and singing to entertain the queues of voters waiting patiently to select their representatives in the country’s unicameral legislature… The list of successful candidates was published on Monday. There was a reported turn-out of over 99% of the voters and all the candidates, including Kim Jong Il, were elected with 100% approval… The children sing songs and chant slogans as they either walk gaily hand in hand, or march solemnly by.
Ambassador Hughes’ post suffered mostly from sins of omission. One exception was the bit about the people of Pyongyang “selecting” their leaders, which is hard to call anything but a strait up lie. However, it might have been just a writing slip. After all, in real elections, people do select their leaders. Perhaps Hughes just let the poetry of his writing get away from the facts.
In response to criticism of the piece, the backtracking set in. It reads in part like he was Fisking himself:
However, the songs played by the bands at polling stations would have been tributes to the system and it’s leaders, not ballads or traditional melodies. The elections were the same as such events everywhere with voters turning out in their hundreds, but there were no opposition candidates: in fact there was only one person standing for each seat which is why all the candidates were elected with 100 approval; and there was a 99 turn out because the compulsory voting was strictly enforced. The children marching in columns through the city in their uniforms would not have been singing nursery rhymes, they would have been singing songs about such things as engaging fully in the “ardent march”, and their chants would have been political slogans.
I have no idea what made Hughes think that the original post would have been hunky-dory. Perhaps he is an unreconstructed pre-Thatcher/pre-Blair Old Labourite (are there any left?). His stated goal was “portraying Pyongyang as a normal city.” Perhaps, but the Old Labourite bit sounds sexier.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
How can he write any kind of objective blog and hope to stay inside the country? It’s hardly fair to criticize anyone for what they say about North Korea while they’re still living there.
Cry me a river.
Sure its easy to point out the failings of another country.
The American people, after 8 years of Bush, two illegal, unsuccessful and expensive wars, and a abrogation of our responsibilities as members of global society regarding climate change, the elimination of nuclear weapons and protection of fur seals in the Alaskan north, exercised their glorious democratic right to vote for the guy from the other party by margin of around one percent.
It couldn’t do us any harm if we had a leader like Kim Jong-il given the shit-for-brains voters than turn out in US elections.
Change you can believe in.
BTW, my avatar is jumping back and forth between the old and new image. Is it a bug?
“…and all the candidates, including Kim Jong Il, were elected with 100% approval…”
I can’t believe you couldn’t taste the irony the guy’s comments were drenched in. Time for Andy to have a fuckin’ drink, methinks.
Wow, Andy has comments on his post.
I think he deserves a celebratory drink.
Who cares. What happened to the black hair dye? It adds authenticity.
Your gravatar is almost as good as Shak’s former one when he used pawi’s or bluejives’s photo. The reaction of the aggrieved was priceless.
Yeah I found it written in anything but a straightforward expository style. I think he was trying to be drily ironic.
Thanks Seouldout, but I am trying to change my avatar as Robert told me it was easier than banning me.
Mizar5 has yet to complain directly to me yet, so I’m hoping that people will get over it and not see beyond the neo-nora black frame spectacles.
Aloha to all my peeps
Andy, really….have a drink and lighten up.
Andy,
He’s an ambassador. What the hell did you expect him to write? Something straight from John Bolton’s talking points?
Strait up?
And by the second comment, we see that we need not concern ourselves with the affairs of North Korea, because America makes mistakes too, so why criticize North Korea? Or, I suppose, anyone? Ever? (except America)
Is there a statute of limitations on this? Or a hundred years from now, can we still excuse abysmal regimes by arguing that, hey, America was worse . . .?
Also, Misuda, your argument might hold a lot more weight if those failed policies you mentioned weren’t being opposed and scrapped as we speak. I think Andy’s point is that North Korea lacks such opposition.
I was a bit disappointed with Kim Jong-il’s poll results in the end. Apparently he didn’t do any better than last time.
#13,
There’s still that pesky 1% who aren’t completely enamored of KJI’s brilliant OTSGAC (on-the-spot guidance and counseling, something his father excelled in, naturally)?
#14
No need to worry that 1% will be sent to reindoctrination, they won’t be pesky anymore.
Has any other leader in modern times commanded such a strong mandate in the polls over such a long time. I’m guessing Kim Jongil has managed to keep rival contenders in the party at bay now for at least 14 years while still maintaining this massive popularity among the electorate despite a decline in agricultural output as the economy adjusted to its WTO committments, the brief hiatus in ties with the US while Bush was stinking up the White House (lets face it, every other country suffered from this), and the scandal of his son’s involvement with that counterfeit passport.
Sheer political genius to be still going as strong. Obama only go 51 percent.
I’ve been told that some local candidates in Iran regularly poll over 100%, but nothing should detract from what was obviously a brilliantly executed campaign by Kim and his election staff.
That is true what you say about Iran eugene, but those local candidates only won by default after some of the rival candidates were caught up in the 2008 Donkeygate sex scandal, and not as a result of good old fashioned door-to-door flesh pressing, an awareness of local issues and track record of delivering policies that the electorate wanted and needed, as seen in this recent North Korean landslide victory.
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